Day: January 31, 2024

As the NFL’s biggest weekend approaches and all eyes are on the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, several football legends are uniting to send a message to the NFL: It’s time to change the drug testing policy to allow for medical cannabis—a plant with proven benefits.

 

Jim McMahon, Kyle Turley, and Eben Britton, co-founders of cannabis brand Revenant, announced the Gridiron Greats Celebrity Golf Classic ahead of Super Bowl weekend on Friday, February 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Proceeds will benefit The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund, a national nonprofit with a mission to assist retired NFL players and their families in dire need situations.

 

The 2024 charity tournament organizers plan to feature former 49ers quarterback Steve Young, as well as Calvin Johnson, Johnny Damon, Jonathan Ogden, Greg Maddux, Ricky Watters, Jake Plummer, Rollie Fingers, Grant Fuhr, Goose Gossage, Vince Coleman, Mark Rypien, and Ricky Williams. Last year’s event in Anthem, Arizona attracted fanfare from local media.

 

Two-time Super Bowl Champion and BYU Hall of Famer, McMahon, was quarterback in the NFL for 15 seasons, particularly with the Chicago Bears. For McMahon and all players, the injuries they sustain while on the field eventually stack up. Cannabis is one way they can reduce their reliance on pharmaceuticals—and that’s the message McMahon, Turley, and Britton want to send a message to the NFL with this year’s golf classic event.

 

“They need it for physical recovery,” McMahon tells Forbes in a phone call. “There’s no doubt about it. I mean, it’s the only neuroprotectant that has a patent on it. Why can’t they freely use that, rather than things that only mask the pain? That’s all they do. They don’t heal the body, they don’t help the body. They ruin your body, you get addicted to them, and they kill people, whereas cannabis has never killed anybody.”

 

U.S. patent No. 6,630,507 was granted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Oct. 7, 2003 to the and covering the potential use of non-psychoactive cannabinoids for their antioxidant and neuroprotective benefits to protect the brain from damage or degeneration caused by certain diseases. The federal government’s double standard is part of the reason why the NFL has been slow to fully accept cannabis use among players.

 

Few from the NFL has been advocating harder than Turley when it comes to the benefits cannabis can have on brain injuries. He’s personally had to deal with early-onset Alzheimer’s, symptomatic chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), seizures, and vertigo, likely due to his run in the NFL.

 

“There is one reason the NFL must implement cannabis and stop testing players for it and start implementing it at the highest levels: Because there’s only one patented neuroprotectant in the world that exists. I discovered this about 10 years ago,” Turley says. “As I had my own experience, and went to learn everything I could about this plant: What it was doing, Why this was happening to me? How could I possibly stop taking three psych meds? How can I possibly get off 12 different painkillers—muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories—that were daily use?”

 

Turley explained that at one point, he was addicted to about 12-15 pills, prescribed by doctors, but cannabis helped him get off every one of those when it comes to dealing with pain or inflammation. About four or five years ago, Turley was diagnosed with stage two progressive dementia—a key reason he’s staying on cannabis.

 

“So from my personal experience, everything that I’ve learned [in] research has been kept from the public about cannabis as a neuroprotectant and the potential that it has, that has been shown in studies to stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease,” Turley says. For him, it was a lived experience.

 

In a 2018 study published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, researchers noted that anecdotally, the combination of THC and CBD was “extremely helpful in treatment of CTE symptoms.”

 

Players are consuming it regardless of NFL rules, and stars like the Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce, as well as others like Martellus Bennett, estimate that up to 80% of the NFL partakes of pot, agreeing with estimates given by former players like Ricky Williams.

 

“We have an endogenous cannabinoid system, which is the number one regulatory system in our bodies,” Turley says. “We should have never been prescribed any of these deadly pharmaceuticals in the first place.” Turley went on to explain how he tirelessly campaigned for medical pot, going in front of an NFL medical board several years ago, presenting a PowerPoint on the reasons why players need medical cannabis.

 

Cannabis and NFL Drug Testing Policy

Given that football players are prone to physical trauma to their bodies and brain, the potential neuroprotective elements of cannabis seem like a no-brainer. If anybody needs cannabis, it’s contact sports players like the ones in the NFL.

 

There’s a clear trend in major sports leagues: In early 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) clarified the league’s cannabis policies in a memo, confirming that players can use cannabis products off-hours, but are not allowed to partner with or sponsor cannabis companies. NBA players will no longer be prohibited for consuming cannabis under a recent seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement signed last June.

 

Now it’s time for the NFL to implement real change, not just reducing penalties for players that test positive for pot. Given that football players are prone to physical trauma to their bodies and brain, those protective aspects seem like a no-brainer.

 

“It’s the same message: to stop testing, allow these guys to use something that’s actually going to help their bodies and help them recover,” McMahon says, adding that pain medications can create all sorts of problems to the kidneys and the body.

 

“We all have a cannabinoid system. We’re supposed to be using this plant,” McMahon said, adding that pharmaceutical opioids stray further from nature, adding that pills like Vicodin or Percocet are alien to our bodies and potentially dangerous.

 

“I’ve taken one pharmaceutical in 10 years, and I only use cannabis since I discovered what it was—that worked for me and advanced that into the depth and the highest levels possible and how to apply this during the processes. I don’t have to take painkillers for anymore, and to run again,” Turley says. “All my back pain issues went away because of Rick Simpson Oil—all of these high concentrate THC things that these government agencies are trying to limit and control right now.”

 

Revenant and Redemption

Turley, Britton, and McMahon are all co-founders of Revenant, a cannabis brand, born from a mutual respect and understanding of the plant’s healing properties, and fueled by their desire to share it with the world.

 

Revenant features strains like Gridiron OG, a sativa-dominant variety with a ChemDawg heritage, or the signature brand MAC 9 with strains like Cardinal Crush or Cougar Blue. Both are rich in the terpenes like humulene, caryophyllene, δ-limonene, and myrcene.

 

Many of these products come in the forms of flower, pre-rolls, vape pens, and more, and they’re available in several state markets.

 

“We’re in California, Arizona, Nevada, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan. I believe there were seven that we’re doing right now, and I know we’re talking to some others,” McMahon says. “But that’s our that’s our goal is to get into all the legal states by the end of this year, and take it from there.”

 

Athletes of all calibers are turning to CBD and/or THC-CBD combinations to aid in the recovery process, particularly for the plant’s neuroprotective benefits which are still being explored. To learn more about Revenant’s upcoming Gridiron Greats Celebrity Golf Classic in Las Vegas, click here.